The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has today released its annual migration report, which reveals that the proportion of Australians born overseas hit the highest level in more than 120 years at 28.2% (6.7 million people) – a level not seen since the gold rushes of the late-1880s.
According to the ABS, this increase has been driven by immigration from India and China:
The percentage of Australian residents born overseas has increased every year for the last 15 years.
“The number of Australian residents born in India has almost tripled over the last 10 years and residents born in China have more than doubled in this time.”
The change in our migrant mix can best be observed in the differences in median age of certain groups.
“Migrants born in Italy, for example, had a median age of 64.7 years in 2005. This increased to 69.3 years in 2015 – indicating a drop in recent migration and the aging of existing migrants,” said Ms Cho.
“On the other hand, migrants from our Asian neighbours, such as India, have seen a reduction in median age from 37 years in 2005 to 33.4 years in 2015.”
Advertisement
Most overseas migrants have been driven into our major capitals, with New South Wales gaining 66,086, Victoria 54,052, and Queensland 19,078:
The below table shows a breakdown of the types of visa groups which have contributed to final net overseas migration. As you can see, temporary visa holders were the main contributors to NOM in the 2014 financial year.
Advertisement
I can’t say that I am surprised by these results. Like it or not, Australia has been running an unprecedented immigration program since the mid-2000s, as evidenced by the below long-run charts:
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
